A YOUNGSTER left disabled after a freak accident is pining for her pets, caught up in a quarantine row.

Gemma Walker went into a coma after kneeling on a drug user's syringe and catching encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain.

As the 12-year-old recovers, she has been left heartbroken after her pets became the centre of a row after going into quarantine.

Gemma's mother, Petra, and her three other children, had to leave the two cats and a dog in kennels when they came back to live in Blackburn after leaving Spain.

Petra says she was quoted a figure of £247 per month for the upkeep of the animals at the place in Dover.

She claims she made an agreement to pay off the bill at £10 or £20 per week, but when the six month quarantine period was over, the kennel owner refused to let the animals out until the bill was paid in full.

One of the cats has since died of the highly contagious feline leukaemia, which Petra fears will have spread to the second cat. Petra, of Mill Hill, said: "When we moved back to Blackburn we had to go into a flat that was formerly occupied by a drug addict.

"Gemma knelt on a syringe and it was then she caught encephalitis. She was in a coma and is still receiving treatment.

"The last thing she needs is hassle over the pets. The children were counting the days until the animals could come home and they're devastated.

"I don't object to paying the bill, even though it was higher than I was originally quoted, but I just want to be able to pay it at the same rate. I've been paying every week but have not been given an explanation as to why the kennels changed their mind."

The pressure group for quarantine reform, QUAFF, has taken up the case and is trying to raise the £2,000 needed to get the animals home.

Nobody at the International Quarantine Kennels in West Hougham, Dover, was available for comment.

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